Here are the conditions for Sunday, December 4:
Diplomacy
- Western countries should consider how to use Russia’s need to ensure security if President Vladimir Putin accepts negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said.
- Macron said Europe must address Putin’s fears that “NATO will arrive at its doorstep” and install weapons that could threaten Russia, as Europe prepares its future infrastructure.
- US intelligence expects that the “decrease in tempo” in fighting in Ukraine will continue for the next few months and they see no evidence of a reduction in Ukrainian resistance, despite attacks on its power grid and other winter equipment.
- Putin is not being honest about peace talks with Ukraine as he is taking the war to “barbaric” levels by trying to extinguish the civilian population, the top US diplomat said.
- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded: “Only the United States and NATO together wasted more electricity than the United States alone.”
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked the US for the billions of dollars that have contributed to his war. “Ukraine’s victory, we are sure, will be our united victory,” he said.
- Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held talks with his Belarusian counterpart. Belarus has said it will not go to war in Ukraine, but President Alexander Lukashenko has previously ordered troops to join Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, citing threats to Belarus from Kyiv and the West.
- A ship carrying Ukrainian grain bound for Ethiopia arrived at the port, the first vessel to sail as part of a food push to countries at risk of famine and drought, Zelenskyy said.
The price of oil
- Russia is considering how to respond to high oil prices after a deal with the West to cut the main source of its military funding in Ukraine.
- The price of $60 for Russian oil, which was agreed by the Group of Seven countries and Australia, is not dangerous and will not prevent Russia from fighting its war, Zelenskyy said.
- Moscow “will not accept this cap”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
- Russia said it would continue to find buyers for its oil, although it said it was “dangerous” that Western governments had taken steps to fix the price of oil exports.
- A group tore down a Banksy mural from a scarred wall in Ukraine, but people were spotted and a picture of a woman wearing a gas mask and a hood holding a fire extinguisher was under police protection.
